Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The former contractor with the National Security Agency who divulged classified secrets about domestic surveillance programs has undertaken what can only be depicted as the global hypocrisy tour. A man outraged by American surveillance and who advocates free expression toodles happily to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China? Then off to Moscow? Then tries for Ecuador (and, in some accounts, Cuba)?

And along the way, Eddie decided to toss out classified information about foreign-intelligence surveillance by the United States in other countries. For the Chinese, he was quite a spigot of secrets. He revealed documents showing that the N.S.A. had obtained text messages from the Chinese by hacking into some of the country’s telecommunications networks, engaged in computer espionage activities at Tsinghua University, and hacked into systems of Pacnet, an Asian provider of global telecommunications service.

Now, before I get into the specifics of Snowden’s China leaks, I want to stop for a minute. I know that, from the time he disclosed classified documents about the mass collection of Americans’ telecommunications data, there have been plenty of debates about whether Snowden is a whistle-blower or a traitor. And I can understand that disagreement when it comes to the data-mining program that slurps up e-mail and phone data of American citizens. But what, exactly, is Snowden attempting to prove with his China revelations? That countries engage in espionage? That the United States listens in on communications of countries with which it maintains often tense and occasionally volatile relations?

The existence of electronic espionage seems to be his beef. In an interview with the South China Morning Post—in which he admitted that he took a job as a systems administrator with an N.S.A. consultant, Booz Allen Hamilton, for the purpose of stealing classified documents—Snowden laid out his bizarre and egomaniacal philosophy: he would decide what information to pass on in countries around the world.

“If I have time to go through this information, I would like to make it available to journalists in each country to make their own assessment, independent of my bias, as to whether or not the knowledge of US network operations against their people should be published.”

I’ll have to assume that Snowden is on this fit of self-righteous arrogance because he thinks there is something wrong with what he’s seen of United States surveillance in other countries. But to decide that standard espionage activities are improper is a foolish, ahistorical belief.

N.S.A. surveillance has been beneficial repeatedly in American foreign policy. Although most instances remain secret, we already know that the N.S.A. listened to Soviet pilots during the 1983 shooting down of a South Korean airliner; used intercepted diplomatic messages to track a 1986 Berlin disco bombing to Libya; and used the cell phones’ SIM cards to track terrorist suspects after the 9/11 attacks.

But let’s take a more important example. In 1937—at a time when the United States was declaring neutrality in the emerging global tensions that fueled World War II—the Japanese government created a cipher for its military messages using a device called the “97-shiki O-bun In-ji-ki.” The Americans code-named it “Purple.”

The United States military was able to intercept Japanese communications (the very reason that Tokyo needed a code) but couldn’t decrypt the information sent through the Purple machine. William Friedman, the first American cryptography expert who tried to break the code, made some progress before suffering a nervous breakdown. Using that initial information, others managed to break more of the code. Once cracked, the United States could track Japanese naval-troop movements and even intercepted communications containing plans for the Pearl Harbor attack—information that was not properly used.

Would Snowden have been outraged that the United States was intercepting Japanese data at a time when the countries were not at war? It took years to crack the Purple code—would Snowden think the United States should have waited until after Pearl Harbor to tap into Japanese communication lines, and only then begin the arduous effort to break the code? And if not, then what is his point in turning over these kinds of secrets to the Chinese? All I have to say is, thank God Snowden was not around in 1937, four years before the United States joined the war—Lord knows how many Americans would have died if he had acted with whatever arrogance, or self-righteousness, or narcissism, or pure treasonous beliefs that drove him to his espionage on behalf of the Chinese.

Now for a closer look at the specific details Snowden turned over. In trying to understand this, I reached out to an individual I know who spent much of a lifetime in the intelligence world, including some related to parts of Asia. While he specifically stated that nothing he discussed would be based on classified information, he was able to offer a number of educated explanations why the United States would be involved in the activities in China that Snowden revealed.

Take the actions involving Tsinghua University. There are many reasons the N.S.A. would be interested in communications and computer activities at this Beijing-based school. For example, beginning in the past decade or so, university programs on arms control have played an important role in the Chinese government’s efforts to administer export controls on sensitive items. (For those wishing to know more, this is well detailed in a book published by the Rand Corporation called Chasing the Dragon: Assessing China’s System of Export Controls for WMD-Related Goods and Technologies.) Now, perhaps the most prominent university program in China on arms control is at—you guessed it—Tsinghua University. So, do you think there might be a reason why the N.S.A. would want to know about any communications on arms control that might take place between the Chinese government and Tsinghua?

The importance of China in global arms-control issues is hard to understate, even in American negotiations with Russia over proposals on nuclear-arms reduction. As Richard Weitz, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Political-Military Affairs at Hudson Institute, wrote last year:

China’s continued absence from strategic nuclear arms control negotiations is already impeding U.S.-Russian progress in this area. Beijing has traditionally resisted participating in formal nuclear arms control agreements. . . . Whereas U.S. officials want the next major nuclear arms reduction agreement to include only Russia and the United States, Russian negotiators want China and other nuclear weapons states to participate. In particular, Russian representatives insist they cannot reduce their major holdings of nonstrategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons without considering China’s growing military potential. Involving China in certain U.S.-Russian arms control processes could facilitate progress between Moscow and Washington in these areas and yield ancillary benefits for related issues.

Is this the reason for the N.S.A.’s activities at Tsinghua? My intel friend held it out as a good, educated guess, but then made a broader point. Contrary to the depictions in movies, the N.S.A. does not engage in foreign surveillance as part of some James Bond–ian plot to take over the world. Decisions are based on the national-security needs of the United States. Actions at Tsinghua are not arbitrary; there is a national-security reason they are being done, whether about arms-control policies in China, something else altogether, or both.

As for the N.S.A. gaining access to Pacnet, the best answer is: no kidding. Snowden has expressed seeming outrage both at this and at the fact that Britain, through the Government Communications Headquarters, had tapped into undersea fiber-optic cables. Pacnet operatesEAC-C2C—the leading fiber-optic submarine cable network in Asia, connecting Hong Kong, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore. In other words, international communications between Asian nations have a good chance of going through the Pacnet cables.

And, what apparently shocks Snowden but what any fool has known for years, the advent of fiber-optic technology has required the N.S.A. and other allied intelligence services to get into the business of cable-tapping. They had the choice: either tap cables or, in some fit of childish, Snowden-like horror at the demands of international security operations, surrender access to intelligence that the West has depended on for decades.

This problem was discussed in a top-secret, hush-hush, “no one can ever see it” public report by the Congressional Research Service on—get ready—January 16, 2001. This 12-year-old document explains not only the reason for expanded international surveillance, but also the need to tap cables:

In the past decade, two important trends have combined to change the nature of electronic surveillance efforts. The end of the Cold War meant policymakers and military officials had a wider range of countries that they were concerned with and placed much greater emphasis on “non-state actors”—terrorist groups and narcotics smuggling organizations that have come to be seen as genuine national security threats. These links are not necessarily easy targets given the great expansion in international telephone service that has grown by approximately 18% annually since 1992. Intelligence agencies are faced with profound “needle-in-a-haystack” challenges; it being estimated that in 1997 there were some 82 billion minutes of telephone service worldwide. The technologies used in civilian communications circuits have also changed; in the past decade reliance on microwave transmissions (which can be intercepted with relative efficiency) has been increasingly displaced by fiber optic cables. Fiber optics can carry far more circuits with greater clarity and through longer distances and provides the greater bandwidth necessary for transmitting the enormous quantities of data commonplace in the Internet age. Inevitably, fiber optic transmissions present major challenges to electronic surveillance efforts as their contents cannot be readily intercepted, at least without direct access to the cables themselves.

Please note, this document is pre-9/11, from a government analytical group outside of the intelligence agencies, discussing the need to tap cables for the purpose of aiding in the surveillance of terrorist groups and narcotics smugglers. (Asia, anyone?) This is not some excuse for what was done in the aftermath of the al-Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington.

But the most important sentence in this report is this: Intelligence agencies are faced with profound “needle-in-a-haystack” challenges. And that is the point of all of this Snowden-esque controversy. In the past, it was comparatively easy to snap up national-security intel—set up a microwave interception system targeting Soviet officials and agents, or some such. America could identify those who posed the national-security threat. Now, not so much.

To hunt for needles, the N.S.A. needs a global haystack that can be used for data mining. That is what the data collection is all about; no one has any interest in listening in on innocuous calls or reading pointless e-mails. This is all about using computers—massive, massive computers—and using complex models and algorithms to find the needles, rather than hoping to guess how to keep Americans safe, just in case the Ed Snowdens of the world might get upset with more intelligent approaches.

Which brings us back to Snowden’s global hypocrisy tour. I think nothing has more thoroughly damaged Snowden’s “whistle-blower” persona than his bizarre—and, I would say, cowardly—decision to rely on some of the countries with the greatest history of oppression to help keep him out of the Americans’ hands. (Usually, when people engage in civil disobedience for a cause—which Snowden seems to want people to believe he is doing—they accept the punishment that will accompany their decision. Snowden, instead, has acted like a spy, fleeing to countries with deeply strained relationships with the United States.

The irony of someone purportedly dedicated to privacy and human rights aiding the Chinese government grew even starker while Snowden was in Hong Kong. Last week, Human Rights Watch issued a reportcondemning a massive surveillance campaign undertaken by the Chinese government in Tibetan villages, which results in political re-education of those who may question the Communist regime and the establishment of partisan security units. “These tactics discriminate against those perceived as potentially disloyal, and restrict their freedom of religion and opinion,” Human Rights Watch wrote.

But hey, that’s just real life, not the Internet privacy that concerns Snowden. And, of course, the level of the Chinese government’s surveillance and control of their citizens’ use of the Internet is almost an art form. Just six months ago, China’s legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, adopted the “Decision to Strengthen the Protection of Online Information.” The new rules, which Human Rights Watch says “threaten security and privacy of internet users,” require telecommunications providers to collect reams of personal information about customers who sign up for Internet, landline, or cell-phone service. The law also requires for the providers to insure they have the ability to immediately identify the real names of people who post comments under pseudonyms. Guess why? “In the days following the decision,’’ Human Rights Watch reported, “several well-known online activists found that theirweibo micro-blogging accounts had been shut down.’’

As for Russia, the crackdown on public activism has intensified in recent months, which, again, has led to Human Rights Watch issuing a reportjust a few weeks before Snowden landed in Moscow. “The crackdown is threatening civil society,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The EU has spoken out strongly in recent months, but now is the time to directly call on Russia’s leadership to revise restrictive laws and stop the harassment of independent groups.” Primarily, the Russians are going after hundreds of rights groups and related activist organizations as part of a massive campaign to force them to register as foreign agents. “The authorities are seeking to define ‘political’ so broadly as to make any involvement in public life that is not controlled by the government off-limits,” Williamson said. “They are also trying to tarnish groups with the ‘foreign agents’ label, which in Russia can only mean ‘spy.’”

And what about Ecuador? Why, just two weeks ago, this country that is apparently on Snowden’s list of possible future homes passed new rules that impede free expression. The statute, called the Communications Law, prohibits anyone from disseminating information through the media that might undermine the prestige or credibility of a person or institution (you know, like revealing a government-sponsored surveillance program). The law also places burdens on journalists, making them subject to civil or criminal penalties for publishing information that serves to undermine the security of the state (you know, like revealing a government-sponsored surveillance program).

The takeaway from all of this is perplexing. Perhaps Snowden is so impaired by his tunnel vision about America’s espionage techniques that he doesn’t understand he has made himself an international fool by cozying up to some of the world’s less-admirable regimes on issues of human rights. And there is another thing to bear in mind: Since Snowden seems keen on turning over secret American information to repressive governments, will he be, in the end, acting to aid that repression? Will whatever information he yields be the missing thread that these authoritarian governments need to oppress their citizens more?

I don’t know. Neither do you. And, in the most horrible reality of all, neither does Edward Snowden.